Here is an announcement I made, using footage I shot on the trip with the new D90. We will be running this for the next few weeks, during the weekend services:

jimmy

Before I left for Africa, I asked Greg Vestri about how sensitive he thought people were about having their picture taken. He said that it was not much different than most places, just use common sense, and go ahead and ask the subject for their permission first, if possible. Then he mentioned that recently, there has been criticism leveled at photojournalism that focused on poverty. The claim is that a typical photograph of a hungry African child is decontextualized, sentimental, and exploitative.

Honestly, I can see the critics’ point. It’s easy to justify these photographs as a vehicle for spreading a worthwhile message that will inspire people to act in response. The message is probably well-meaning and truthful. Help this hungry child. But as a photographer, I will be the first to tell you that a photograph isn’t truthful at all, even if it is taken honestly, without (obvious) manipulation or modification. Part of it is truthful, but the context will (and should) always be in question.

This is a photo I took at a school near Jinja. I think this is a fair representation of the kind of picture you might see in a save the children campaign, designed to have people running for their checkbooks. This photo was not manipulated in any way, either at the time I took the shot, or in post production. I saw the child sitting outside a classroom and I walked over and took several pictures. In that sense (and in the sense that this child does, in fact, need help), the photo is honest.

What isn’t honest, or at least what is obscured, is the context. What we all forget is that a photographer is usually part of the context. In this case, I walked over to the child and he was looking right at me. What might be perceived as sadness or worry in his expression, might simply be curiosity at seeing a mzungu. The truth is – the child had that expression on his face, because…

…I hadn’t made him smile yet.

As a student of journalism and a photographer (and now, as someone who takes photographs of poor African children), I am very interested in this debate. If you have any thoughts about the subject, let me know in the Comments section. However, I would like to make a more important point – if these photographs or blog entries about Africa (or anything else) inspire you, then I would urge you to seek the truth for yourself and go see things with your own eyes. I can tell you that even with a lifetime of preparation, nothing was quite like I expected. No photograph, no book, no story could have prepared me for the things that took my breath away. They only inspired me. I didn’t see the truth, until I went to see for myself.

Full size versions of these photos are in the gallery.

jimmy

One week from today, we fly to Uganda, Africa. I’m not ready.

Well, in one sense, I am very ready. I have wanted to go to Africa since high school, when a geography teacher sparked my imagination with tales of her experiences in Kenya, specifically with the Maasai people. She had lived with the Maasai for some time and had become an honorary member of their tribe. She told us about drinking the mixture of cow’s blood and milk, which is a waning tradition. She told us about the tribe’s custom of stretching their earlobes. She said they liked to put things in them, especially 35 mm film canisters (something else which is disappearing), because they could carry things in them. She also taught us some basic Swahili (Kiswahili). Because of her expertise, she spent a lot of time making her experiences come alive for us and I really wanted to go and meet those people she talked about.

Around the same time, Out of Africa was released. I saw the film with my girlfriend and at one point, I found myself bawling my eyes out. No, it wasn’t because of what happened to Robert Redford’s dashing Denys Finch Hatton. I don’t know what it was about. John Barry’s beautiful score certainly didn’t help matters, but clearly, something was stirring in me. I suspect my girlfriend thought I was crazy. To be sure there was plenty going on in my life to cause a spontaneous, minor emotional breakdown, but I really think it goes beyond those events. For all the years that I have thought about that incident, I have known in my heart that it had something to do with Africa.

I began to keep a clip file on Africa and I even bought a book about traveling to Africa, but I never went.

Peter Beard wears a different kind of croc.

Then I discovered Peter Beard, an American artist, photographer, and ecologist who was inspired to move to Kenya after reading Karen Blixen’s Out of Africa three decades before I saw Sydney Pollack’s film. His collage-style diaries inspired my own diaries that I began in the 90′s (I will discuss those les livres noirs in another blog entry some other day). I found Beard’s life to be fascinating and desirable. To me, he was a real life “most interesting man in the world.” If I couldn’t be James Bond, then I wanted to be Peter Beard.

I loved the way he seemed to effortlessly navigate between living in a tent, on his ranch in Kenya, photographing the grim plight of the African elephant and flying to New York to party at Studio 54 with his pals Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, Bianca Jagger, and Jackie O. He was friends with Francis Bacon. He married Cheryl Tiegs. Admittedly, some of my admiration was misguided, but I don’t want to derail my point with those observations at this time. There is no denying our common passion for Africa and studying Beard’s work only deepened my longing for the continent.

And still, though I sometimes had the means, I never went.

I use the word continent deliberately. Most of my early African inspiration came specifically from Kenya, but later I would have similar deeply moving feelings about other parts of Africa, especially North Africa, which is vastly different than East Africa. I have heard about North Africa my whole life, because my mother lived in Morocco when she was a teenager. My point is that there is something about that continent. Some draw. Something beyond description. Something beyond me.

And still, even knowing that I needed to go there, I never went.

It wasn’t the right time. Let me just say it as plainly as I can – I believe that God didn’t want me to go on a photo safari in Africa. Don’t hear me say there is anything wrong with photo safaris or tourism. Maybe I will do that someday. But as God has restored things in my life that I had previously ruined, delayed, derailed, or thought beyond reach, I have come to recognize his handiwork, his holy blessed meddling, and it is clear to me that he reserved my experience of Africa, until I was ready to go and serve in his name. I think he used my experience with the homeless camp a couple of years ago as a kind of missionary bunny slope, a safe way to understand a particular kind of service to people, which had nothing to do with art and was outside my comfort zone.

I get the feeling that on this trip, God is going take me being outside my comfort zone to a whole nutha level. In fact, that process caught me off guard by starting almost the moment we signed-up. At the first team meeting, our leader, Erika Dunham, started talking about support letters. Support letters? I had assumed we would just pay our own way. She described the process and then asked if anyone had a problem with it. My hand shot up. I told her that I felt very uncomfortable asking people for money (especially in the current economy), not because we didn’t have the money, but rather because we did have the money. She listened patiently and then said it was my pride. Ulp.

Sending the support letters was difficult for me, but Erika explained some of the Biblical concepts behind it and after some reflection, I have a much better understanding of why it is done that way. If you did not receive a letter from us, please take that as a statement of our weakness and nothing more. We sent very few letters this time and most of them were to family. One of the difficult concepts for me was understanding that we were being selfish by denying people the chance to contribute and participate in the mission trip. So (deep breath), if you are reading this and would like to contribute financially to this trip, you can send a check to:

2009 ACF Africa Mission Trip
c/o Austin Christian Fellowship
6401 River Place Blvd
Austin, TX 78730

Make the check payable to Austin Christian Fellowship and put Jimmy and Kimberly Pribble on the memo line. You can also support us with prayer! Please know that prayer might even be more important for the success of the trip. We don’t know yet what our needs will be, so simply pray that God’s will be done.

If you did receive and respond to our letter, thank you! Your outpouring of love and support has been humbling. In practical terms, we just got word that our trip has been fully funded through your donations! I know the Lord will bless your sacrificial giving and I promise to do my best to document the trip so you can see God’s hand in the lives of those we meet in Africa and in our own lives.

No Really, I’m Not Ready

I had a fantasy that I would clear my calendar the two weeks before the trip in order to give myself time to study, pray, shop for supplies, pack, and learn to use my new camera. No chance. I’m booked. In fact, this next week I am busy every evening, except Wednesday, and that is because I canceled my standing Wednesday Work Night.

In fact, I have had so many projects lately, that I have found it very difficult to get deeply excited about this trip and I so desperately want to be excited. I am just about to go to our packing party, so maybe that will help.

Each year, dozens of people are killed on Lake Victoria by crocs. Do they really want us sending them more?

Okay, I just got back from the packing party and my attitude has improved. We have a great team and everyone not only pitched-in to pack 26 duffel bags full of donations (that’s 1300 lbs. of stuff), but they did it with a great attitude and a real sense of purpose. It’s going to be great serving with them over the next few weeks.

I was also happy to see so many Crocs being shipped to Africa. Hey, the more we send to Africa, the less we have here! Okay, I admit it – I hate those shoes. I’m sure they are practical, but let’s face it, so are nurses shoes and I don’t want to see those on everyone’s feet, either. Still, thank you Crocs for your donation! Those folks in Africa are going to love your shoes and I hope your company will be blessed, because of your genorosity.

This post has really gone off its outline. Let’s see if I can wrap this up. I was talking about not being ready…

A couple of weeks ago, I did manage to clear my schedule long enough to do some research into Uganda. Until recently, my brain dump of all things Uganda would have looked like this: Uganda, Idi Amin, Raid on Entebee and…that’s it. So, I studied-up on Uganda’s geography first and then checked the CIA World Factbook for a solid overview. I have a reasonable library at home, so I looked at my books and came-up with only two hits: a very short entry in 1000 Places to See Before You Die (good) and a very long entry in The World’s Most Dangerous Places. Oh dear.

So, I went to Barnes & Noble to see what I could find. I bought The Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden and The Teeth May Smile but the Heart Does Not Forget: Murder and Memory in Uganda by Andrew Rice. Grim stuff. I think Kevin Kendrick picked-up a book that is even worse. It’s probably just as well I don’t have more time to research. I think I would rather just get over there and I see what I see with my own eyes, unencumbered with preconceived expectations. That is my primary duty after all – I am the official photographer and blogger for this mission trip.

My secondary duty? Preacher. I’ll give you a moment to pick yourself up off the floor. I swear, I’m as shocked as you are. Two Sundays from now, I am going to go to an African church , stand-up behind a pulpit, and deliver a full-length sermon, maybe through a translator, maybe not. I was just told this last week. I don’t have a sermon prepared, I don’t know what to say to a congregation that I have never met and who’s lives I do not yet understand, and I don’t see that I have any time in the next two weeks to write what will be my very first sermon.

I’m really, really not ready. But God is.

jimmy

Charles driving us to Arizona in his Suburban.

It’s good to be home from vacation. My week of sleeping on couches is over. I slept on three different couches in two different states. Remarkably, all were different, yet all were comfortable. Unlike our last road trip through the same parts (see previous post), the road trip with Charles was also very different and very comfortable. The 1991 road trip was all about racing across the country at top speed on cramped sport bikes, sleeplessly running from demons and tornadoes, all fueled by alcohol and youthful stupidity. This trip was about two middle-aged men in a Suburban, talking a lot and eating from a bag of carrot sticks. Frankly, there is not much more to tell.

On Monday, I drove to Dallas and met Charles at the airport, where I left my car for the return trip. Charles had brought a surprise gift for me – a very special pair of loudspeakers. Charles had remembered my fascination with these speakers when we were young. I loved their unique design, but at $500 a pair in 1986, they were beyond my reach. Twenty years later, Charles was reading letters that I sent to him while I was in the Air Force and came across one in which I mentioned these. So, he found a pair on eBay, refurbished them for me and that is how I came to be the proud new owner of a pair of Design Acoustic PS-10s.

What makes the speakers unique is that they have a small form factor (about a 1′ cube), but the main cabinet is held over a built-in stand by about an inch, which allows for a downward-firing 10″ woofer. I only just now noticed that DA called this the “Bass Base.” LOL. I found an obscure little forum that concerns itself with old Design Acoustic speakers here and they had posted some original literature, which I reposted on my flickr page for posterity.

Click the brochure for more information about the PS-10 loudspeakers.

This is boring Jimmy. Get back to the road trip.

Well, that’s the thing, you see. This is very representative of our road trip. After meeting his family of girls and spending the night at his house (specifically in his media room on couch #1), Charles and I woke-up at 5:30 AM on Tuesday and spent the next 15 hours talking about stuff like stereos, cars (lots about cars), our history, our other road trips, and the awesome new 80 MPH speed limit in West Texas, as well as other, more lightweight subjects like religion and politics. We checked into the hotel, got some sleep (couch #2), woke-up and then talked some more. We didn’t do much of anything.

On Wednesday, we did a recce of the bicycle course, Charles went for a brief ride and run, and then we had an awesome lunch at Med Fresh Grill, a Turkish restaurant that we found near the ASU campus (thanks to Shawn Olsen for the tip).

We caught a showing of Quantum of Solace (my second) and then we went back to the campus area, where I barely got the last order of fish and chips before the kitchen closed at a traditional Irish Pub, Rúla Búla. No, it is really an Irish pub, built in Ireland and then shipped over here. Like a kit, I guess. Anyway, it seemed authentic enough to me, until the loud hip hop started playing on the patio, where we were seated. I asked the impossibly young, impossibly perky waitress about it (is that a smiley face she drew on my ticket?) and she said that was normal after 9 PM. Ugh. The pint of Guinness Extra Stout on draft made it all better, though.

I flew back to Dallas the next day. I stayed with David Sylvester and his family for a couple of days (couch #3) before driving home. I had a good visit with Dave and also got to spend some quality time with my goddaughter, Melynda. Melynda has an awesome imagination, so without missing a beat, she and I worked-out a scenario during her play time in which I sat in her restaurant and she served me a meal. I didn’t like the food, so I walked the check. She called the police and I was thrown in jail, after which I was tried and sentenced to community service, which of course involved me working in her restaurant as a kitchen porter washing dishes and such. I wasn’t able to complete the rags-to-riches story by working my way up to head chef before Melynda had to go to bed. So I read a mystery to her, before tucking her into bed. I really need to see her more often; it makes me a better person.

Melynda and Meryn.

A couple of bonus photos and details about the trip are on my Facebook profile here. I think Facebook is wrecking my already bad blogging habits, but we’ll talk more about that later…on Facebook. D’oh!

Oh, Charles met his personal goal and finished the Ironman. Cheers, mate!

jimmy

I have never thought this was a particularly good write-up, but it is simply a direct transcription of my diary, except for minor editing (grammar, clarity), or where there have been gross omissions, such as our foray into Tijuana and our encounter with a tornado. Yes, somehow I forgot the tornado. Maybe Charles can help me remember more details about the trip.

Road Trip: Monterrey, California, August 7-15, 1991

San Antonio, TX – Ft. Stockton, TX

My friend Charles Braden, who was living in Houston at the time, met me at the entrance of the San Antonio International Airport sometime around 11pm on Wednesday, August 7, 1991. He was riding his Honda VFR700 Interceptor. I had just ridden down from Austin on my smaller ’84 Honda VF500F Interceptor. We met in San Antonio to catch I-10 West, which would take us all the way to California and our friends Rob and Michelle, who were living in Monterrey. Despite already being tired from an ordinary day, the excitement of finally setting out on our long-planned trip kept us riding until 5am, when we finally had to stop just outside of Ft. Stockton for some sleep.

Our first campsite located just outside of Ft. Stockton. The night we stopped was beautiful. It was so dark that the Milky Way could easily be seen and the light from our flashlights made visible beams into the distance. We were so tired that the rocky ground didn’t bother us at all. We probably could have done without a tent and even sleeping bags. However, the Sheriff that told us we were on private property the next morning DID bother us, so we left.

West Texas – The Tornado

August in Texas is no picnic. It was easily 100 F degrees in the shade every day that we rode. Unfortunately, we weren’t in the shade. We were also sitting behind running engines all day, with our feet resting just above burning hot exhausts. It was hot, get it?

Anyway, somewhere deep in West Texas, we found some relief in the occasional flash rainstorm. These storms would literally appear out of nowhere, unload on us, and then they were gone. One storm that we were coming upon looked particularly ominous. The sky above us was bright sunny and clear, but in the very near distance, perhaps just a couple of miles ahead (less than two minutes), we could see a sky as black as night. We could also see the WALL of water pouring from the sky. It was one of the strangest things I had ever seen. In a split second, I went from hot and dry, to riding through the water wall and into cold gusting winds blasting us with sand. Visibility went to very bad, but we pressed on. Just ahead, we could see an overpass. We pulled in underneath and found a couple of other cyclists. We thought it would blow over quickly, so we just sat on the bikes.

In an instant the wind and rain picked up to an incredible level. Then the hail started. It was deafening. I had just a moment to make a last nervous joke to Charles and I yelled to him at the top of my lungs, “We’re all going to die!” A split second after that it turned worse and I realized it was no joking matter. We could hear the freight train sound and we were bent over our bikes (like so many of our top speed tests) clutching onto the bikes for dear life. For a second, there was a reprieve and we ran up to the uppermost corner of the underpass. We could see big parts of trees and other debris flying through the underpass. A minute later it was gone. We never actually saw the funnel, but it was there. We spent some time collecting ourselves and after some delay, got back on the road.

Tucson, AZ and the Jacket Incident

We stayed in Tucson that night in the worst fleabag motel we could find – The Dreamland Motel (the Vista Del Sol was full), for $18. The next morning, we had breakfast at the best diner I have ever been to. Talk about a slice of America, I thought “Mel” (Vic Tayback, R.I.P.) was going to walk out of the kitchen at any time. I made the above notes while eating the “Hungry Jack” breakfast.

So there we were, somewhere in Arizona, minding our own business and going 120 mph. I was drafting Charles, trying to raise my top speed record, which stood at 124 mph (set the previous day). All of a sudden, my beautiful new Harley-Davidson jacket, which was strapped onto my seat, was sucked behind my bike where it was then picked up by the rear wheel and pulled into the bike. It looked like this:

This put me into a skid. A fast one. I somehow managed to keep from dropping the bike, pulled over, and leapt from the bike thinking it might be on fire (burning rubber and leather creates a lot of smoke). Imagine my surprise at seeing the culprit. The end results weren’t so bad: a nice adrenaline rush, a seriously worn tire, and an ordinary jacket transformed into a battered, melted and torn Mad Max™ jacket! Cool!

Jimmy’s Top Tip: Don’t try this at home.

The skid mark begins where Charles is standing – 495 feet!

San Diego, CA – Tijuana, Mexico

In trying to maintain the $18 nightly room rate we had found on the Interstate, we ended up in the seediest part of San Diego. It was so bad, that when we were checking into the hotel, the clerk slid a form to me from under his caged window. “What’s this?” I asked. “It says that you aren’t a hooker and nobody you bring to your room is a hooker,” he said. Classy.

Since we were already wading in the cesspool, we figured why not just dive all the way in and we headed for Tijuana. We parked and walked across the border. Back in Laredo, I was used to being able to just walk across the border and plop myself down at the Cadillac Bar without too much trouble, but in Tijuana you actually have to take a cab into town. We got downtown and started looking around. This place made Laredo look like Tuscany. It was filthy nasty. It didn’t help that it was practically abandoned. We went into a two-story discothèque and we were literally the only customers. We were too tired to look very hard for the right place to be, so we just parked it and ordered a drink. Charles ordered some kind of popper and the funny thing was the bartender came out to our table and played it up as if the place was packed. He yanked Charles’ head back poured some shots in his mouth, grabbed his head and shook it up while another bartender stood by and cheered him on. I’m sitting there looking around an empty room and thinking what the hell is this guy doing?

Los Angeles, CA

Los Angeles. La-La Land. Whatever. We didn’t even bother seeing the city. It would take at least a week to begin to see all there is, so we decided to see one small part. While stuck in traffic, we asked this guy where they had filmed the race scenes in the movie “Against All Odds.” Without missing a beat, he gave us precise directions and even helped us find the right road to turn on (it wasn’t far off), so we spent the next four hours racing through the canyons on Mulholland Drive. It was great fun!

Monterrey, CA – Rob and Michelle

We finally arrived in Monterrey and rode up to Rob and Michelle’s apartment. It was finally time for the big surprise. I knocked on the door and Rob answered. He was completely and totally…unsurprised. It seems that my overly-concerned grandmother called ahead, asked for me, and then rang off when they said I wasn’t there. They put two and two together and Rob went out for some beer so we would have something to drink when we got in.

Anyway, we spent some time catching up and then we went out for a nice dinner in Carmel. We stopped by Clint Eastwood’s restaurant on the off chance he would be there, but no such luck. So we went back to Rob and Michelle’s place and stayed up late drinking. The next morning, we realized that we hadn’t taken any photos from the previous night, so Michelle and I “fake partied” for the camera.

Later that morning we headed back south to LA, where we would turn west and finally head home.

Los Angeles, CA – Charles’ Bad Day

As usual, we were traveling at a high rate of speed when Charles passed a CHP truck. The trooper pulled him over and told him that if he had noticed him and slowed down, he wouldn’t have done anything. But Charles somehow didn’t notice that the truck was black and white, had lights in the window, and oh yeah, had “STATE TROOPER” written across the back. Duh. Anyway, the trooper was very nice and we were soon on our way. Considering all we had done up until now, the fact that this was the first ticket of the trip was fairly miraculous.

We rode well for most of the day. Around dusk, we skirted LA and as we moved away from town, we encountered a lot of traffic. So, we started doing something that is common out here. It’s called “white lining.” Motorcycles ride between cars in heavy traffic or in traffic jams. Most of the cars are respectful of the practice.

Anyway, Charles and I were moving through traffic at our usual speeds of about 100 mph when we almost passed another CHP patrol car on the side of the road. Charles, who was a little in front of me, hit his brakes, locked his front wheel and went down hard. For a split second, I thought I might hit him, but I managed to avoid him and pull over quickly. As I got off the bike and ran back to Charles, I remember being completely calm. Then I saw Charles walking around, though he was favoring his hand was obviously in excruciating pain. But, I knew he must be alright.

A very nice young couple pulled over and helped. The guy helped me pick up the bike and roll it off the road, while his pregnant wife helped Charles take his helmet off and wrap his hands. These people were very kind. They even told the cops that we weren’t speeding. The bike’s magnesium crankcase cover broke and spilled all of the oil. Other than that, it appears that the turn signal and fairing are the only other things damaged. The bike was towed to the wrecker company and tomorrow morning, they will take it to the local Honda dealer.

Tonight, Chas and I are staying at a truck stop motel. We will learn tomorrow what’s going to happen as far as getting Charles home. It all depends on whether they can fix his bike quickly or not. I can’t believe Charles topped my jacket incident on this trip.

Self-portrait on the night of Charles’ accident:

God, I look young and tired. The next day I got on my bike and rode 26 hours straight to get back home. Seriously, I’m not sure that I was sane back then.

jimmy

As you know from my last post, Kimberly and I recently had a staycation. It was fine. But I have just returned from a vacation in Port Aransas, TX with my family and I can say with the utmost certainty that a vacation (even a modest one), trumps a staycation. Writing a full compare and contrast post would be cruel; it wasn’t even close.

We went with my mom and my step-dad, Bob, my brother Michael and his family: Vanessa, and their kids, Chase and Ashley. We stayed at the La Mirage condos, right off the beach. I have never stayed in the condos along the beach. I have always stayed in other hotels (or homes) and driven to the beach, or I have just gone on day trips. It was very cool. A two-minute walk down a boardwalk and we were at the beach.

This was good for me, since it turns out that I don’t like to go to the beach when my family does. They like to go out in the middle of the day, when the red flags go up and the skin cancer danger is highest. It also happens to be when the beach is most packed with people and the sun is straight up in the air, it’s hot, and photos look terrible. That’s just as well, since I couldn’t get my camera to work until the last evening (which is why I don’t have any family photos).

Instead, I like to go late, late in the afternoon. It’s my favorite time of day anyway, but the beach empties out, it cools off, and sunglasses aren’t required. That’s also just as well, since I broke my shades halfway through the trip. Anyway, the afternoon light makes everything look pretty.

On our last afternoon, Michael and Vanessa went on a date night and Mom, Bob, and Kimberly watched the kids, while I went to the beach. It was nice to grab some alone time. I went and played around in the surf for awhile. I like to porpoise dive over the big breakers. I usually do alright at first, but eventually I get tired and the waves knock me around pretty good. It feels good.

What’s that sound?

Kimberly came down after awhile to get me. We went and got everyone some ice cream and then after the kids went to bed, Mom, Michael, Kimberly and I pulled out the dominoes and had a chicken foot rematch. As we had discovered the night before, I rule at chicken foot. Who knew?

Other highlights of the week included watching the Republican National Convention speeches (we are a family divided and let’s just leave it at that), having a very nice dinner at Marcel’s Restaurant for mom’s birthday (which is actually today), and watching cable, which is a novelty for Kimberly and me.

Maybe the best thing about the week was the weather. It was brilliant. It was really humid on the day we arrived and the day we left, but the rest of the week was clear and mild with low humidity. We didn’t see a drop of rain until the day we left. I can’t believe that we almost called-off the trip because we were worried about hurricane Gustav. He missed completely and Ike was still a week away. We hit the window perfectly.

Speaking of Ike, despite warnings of certain death, Rob has decided that he and Michelle are going to board-up the windows and lock themselves in their house with a box of wine. I would applaud them for their courage, except that I’m not sure that they don’t do that every single weekend, anyway. For the record: Fort Booth.

Ike? Is that you?

Jimmy

Tony Colvin and I thought that attending the arts conference would be a good way for me to jump-start getting plugged back into the arts team at ACF. Besides, it would give me a few days away from the nightmare of living in the miserable mess of our home, while the new floors were being installed.

Our flight was on Wednesday at 10:00 am. Everyone was going to meet at the church (or Starbucks) and then carpool to the airport. Around 8:40 am on Tuesday morning, I was sitting at my desk at work, already started on a busy day of preparing to be gone for a week, when Tony called. “You know that we are leaving today, don’t you?” I froze. The flight was at Tuesday at 10:00 am.

“Tony, I can’t think on the phone. I’m going to hang-up and I’ll call you back when I know what I’m going to do.” I rang off. Stupid ADD. I can’t remember anything. I ran through a couple of different scenarios. I couldn’t make it home and back in time, so that was out. I could catch a later flight, but then I would have to rent my own car. Not a big deal, but I was worried about the availability of flights. Or, I could just go make my flight. After a couple of minutes of consideration, that’s exactly what I did. I stood-up, told the folks at work that I would see them next week, drove to the airport, and made my flight with nothing but the clothes on my back and my gym bag, which was all I had in my car.

My friends got a lot of mileage out of my predicament, but it was all in good fun. I couldn’t help but think that God was having a good laugh, as well. For weeks I had been complaining about the condition of our house and the fact that we had to live out of our suitcases in one room of the house while the floors were being replaced. I could imagine God saying, “Tired of living out of a suitcase? Here, how about no suitcase. Ha-ha!” It’s just like God to humble me and have a good laugh at the same time. He wasn’t finished with me, either.

We arrived in Chicago, rented a car, and drove to the hotel in South Barrington. When I walked into the hotel, I couldn’t believe my eyes. They were redoing their floors!

Look familiar?

Everything was just like at my house – the dust, the fumes, and the piles of displaced furniture. I hadn’t escaped from anything. Okay God, I get it. I get it! Very funny.

I went up to my room and emptied my gym bag on the bed. There wasn’t much that was useful. I could probably use the clean socks and tennis shoes. I had also grabbed a toothbrush and some toothpaste that I keep in my desk. My hair was cut really short, so there was no need for a hair brush or even product (besides, hotel-provided conditioner does in a pinch). There was no need to shave, so I didn’t need any of that gear, either. The hotel provided soap and shampoo, so all I really needed was deoderant. As for clothes, I was wearing my work khakis and loafers. Not much is more versatile than that. If I had to, I could have worn those for the rest of the week and just changed shirts. So I had a plan – get by with souvenir t-shirts until I could get to a real store for a change of clothes.

Just a little while later, we went into downtown Chicago and ate at Giordano’s Pizza. I love Chicago-style pizza. In fact, I love Giordano’s pizza so much that on a previous visit, I flew some back home with me. My carry-on was a box of pizza. I swear. Anyway, we had a great time. We celebrated J.R.’s birthday and stuffed ourselves silly. I also bought a Giordano’s shirt for the next day. It was pretty late by the time we headed back to the hotel, but we found a Walgreens and I ran inside to get some supplies. Niki noticed that they actually had some shirts for sale. There were only about a dozen or so and most of them were pretty bad. One of them was a sleeveless, shiny silver roller disco style shirt. I think another one had rainbows and unicorns on it. Who the hell buys this stuff? Anyway, one of the shirts wasn’t bad at all. It was just a red knit polo shirt. It had some black accents that looked nice, it was 100% cotton, and it was made by Jerzees, which is a name brand. The only questionable design feature was the black and white, checkered flag banding around the sleeves. Probably not something I would normally choose for myself, but I guess I’m a racer kind of guy, so I it could work. Besides, the shirt was only $4! That settled it.

The next day, I chose to wear my $4 Walgreens shirt, since I thought it looked better with my work pants and loafers. I took some shots from my friends for it, but a couple of them eventually admitted that the shirt actually looked alright. After the conference was over for the day, we rushed off to grab some quick dinner before heading back to the church for their regular Wednesday night worship. We went to Chili’s but the wait was too long. Then we went to T.G.I. Friday’s, but their wait was too long, too. Finally, we ended-up at a place called Steak ‘n Shake. Apparently, there is one of these in South Austin, but I had never been to one before. Imagine my horror upon discovering that the decor of the restaurant matched my $4 shirt! I looked like I worked for Steak ‘n Shake!

I was hoping that if the employees thought I was from the corporate office, I would get better service. Not so much. I did get my order taken first, but my food took so long to come out that they gave it to me for free. Since we’re here, I guess I’ll do a quick review of Steak ‘n Shake: The vanilla malt was excellent, the “steak burger” was maybe the most bland and tasteless burger I have ever eaten (it tasted like…water?), the fries were good, but the service was poor.

After the Wednesday night service, my friend Phyllis (who had rented her own car) and another girl from our group took me to Target for some clothes. My souvenir shirt plan just wasn’t working. Obviously, an arts conference is attended by artists. Have you ever seen how artists dress? It might as well have been called an “artist and hipsters” conference, except that the word hip isn’t hip anymore and they would have to call it something else. I don’t know what that would be because I’m old and I’m not privy to the new word for hip. I won’t know it until that word has gone out of fashion, so I still have to say hip. Anyway, there were eleventy-thousand artists at this conference and they all had cool hair, and cool glasses designed by architects, and cool jeans, and cool flip-flops, and of course, cool chi teas and coffees, which they got from the cool Starbucks knock-off inside the church. I was in over my head. I was still stuck in my corporate drone-wear with a shirt from Walgreen’s. Besides, I’m just not cool. I needed help.

So, we hit Target and I put together what I call my Youth Pastor Kit™ – a dark brown and blue pullover shirt that looks exactly like one that I wore back in 1974, flared jeans, and some stylish, square-toed leather shoes. I was a puka shell necklace and feathered haircut away from looking like David Cassidy. I felt ridiculous, but my friends said the clothes looked good and maybe the other attendees wouldn’t think I was a narc.

Afterwards, Phyllis wanted to do some exploring, so we drove to a nearby little town called Elgin. It seemed like a sleepy little place – the kind with old, craftsman-style homes and a historical district downtown. By the time we got there, it seemed the town had shut-down for the night, but we drove around and looked at the interesting old homes and talked about what it would be like to live in a small town. Then we turned a corner and it was like somebody had popped a flashbulb in my face. Right in the middle of this quiet, dark little town was a huge casino! I had a assumed that the town was asleep, but I think what was really happeneing was that the casino was sapping all the power from the rest of the town. This thing was lit up like a jukebox.

From the front, it looked like a regular casino, but it was really a riverboat casino. It never sails, so I don’t know if there is some historical value to that riverboat, or if it just a way to sail through one of those legal loopholes we have in this country that says gambling is bad everywhere except for two cities, Indian reservations, and on barges where there is a good chance a nautical tragedy will drown all of the sinners at once. Whatever. We were there – so we went in. And that was how less than two hours after walking out of a Wednesday night worship service, I found myself drinking a beer in a riverboat casino.

It was actually a pretty nice casino. It was nicer than the cruise ship casinos I have seen and it was even better than many of the casinos I have seen in Vegas. Also, it was late on a Wednesday night, so there wasn’t a crowd (though it was far from empty). Now, I could make a big tall tale out of this, but the truth is, I’m not much of a gambler. If circumstances had been a little different, I might have sat at a table for a little while, just to say I had done it. But, sitting at a Blackjack table in my $4 shirt and a bummed beer (thanks, Phyllis!), while I gambled off of a credit card, sounded to me like a Really Bad Idea™. So, we each had a beer, Phyllis lost some money on the slots, and we called it a night.

The next evening was a real misadventure. The plan was to go downtown and check-out some Blues. But there were so many of us that it would have taken two cars and nobody wanted to take their car anyway, because parking in downtown Chicago is on the order of $20/hr. So, we took the train. There really isn’t a good way to tart-up this story, so I’m just going to spill it out and get it over with. First of all, dinner ran very late. I don’t know why, because we ate at a Chili’s-style restaurant that should have taken no more than an hour, but somehow it took over two. Then we took the train – the miserably slow train. Halfway through the trip downtown, the conductor announced that one of the tracks is down, so they would have to share tracks with another train. The miserably slow train had to stop and wait for that train to pass, before we could proceed. That added another 20 minutes to the trip. All told, I think we were on the train for at least an hour. It seemed like more, trust me. At one point, as my eyes wandered over the PSA posters and wireless phone ads for the eleventy-millionth time, it occurred to me that these were the same trains that were in Risky Business. I was excited for about ten seconds, but then, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t figure-out a way to make that interesting. So, I went back to being bored to death.

Finally, we arrived downtown, but with only had a vague sense of where we needed to go. This part wasn’t too bad for me. I love walking around downtown in big cities at night. Yes, I am being that specific on pupose. I have done it in cities here and abroad, and I just love it. But there wasn’t too much time to just enjoy it, because we were on a mission. A local fella noticed we looked lost and was nice enough to actually walk us to a bar with a Blues band. We arrived just in time for last call and the last two songs of the night. It was a great band, but by that time, it just didn’t seem to me like much of a payoff. There were rumors of another Blues bar that stayed open late, but we were exhausted and a maybe a little discouraged, so we packed it in and steeled ourselves for the long train ride back. It was awful.

I haven’t said much about the conference itself, but that’s only because it doesn’t lend itself to good storytelling. It’s just like most conferences – there are general sessions and break-out sessions. The general sessions began with music and worship, then followed with teaching. The general sessions were really like little church services, except with teaching that focused on the arts. I really enjoy immersive experiences like these. They help me get focused. I’m also inspired just by being around other artistic people and seeing excellent art used for the church. The conference was also a great way for me to hang-out with my old friends that I used to serve with. The idea was that it would create a platform or bridge, from which I could reenter and serve within the arts team at ACF. I still don’t know if that will come to fruition, but I’m pressing-on regardless. Tomorrow, I will go to a training class to learn how to use the new video gear that ACF will be using.

Here is a blog with clips, comments, resources, and background stuff on the 2007 WCA arts conference. Don Miller and the Urban Poets were two of my favorite things about the conference. In fact, it was reading Don Miller’s book Blue Like Jazz earlier this year, that was one of the things that got me back to ACF. In that light, it was particularly awesome to hear him speak at the conference.

2007 WCA Arts Conference Blog

jimmy

I stopped to have lunch in Lampasas and review the burger at Storm’s:

Storm’s is legendary around Central Texas. I swear, any time that I hear anyone mention Lampasas, the very next words I hear are, “Did you go to Storm’s?” It could be a conversation between two people, or you can just walk outside and mutter “Lampasas” under your breath and a passerby in a car will call out, “Hey, be sure to go to Storm’s!” I’m not kidding. Go try it. So, inspired by the Texas Burger Guy (TBG) blog that I stumbled upon recently, I decided to stop and see what all the fuss is about.

A quick note about my review style. I hope to submit my review to TBG as a guest reviewer, so I will try to follow TBG review rules.

Storm’s has been serving burgers at their original Lampasas location for over 50 years. Originally called Dairy Cue, it sounds suspiciously like Storm’s started life as one of the many Dairy Queen knockoff restaurants that are strewn around small towns in Texas (Dairy King, Dixie Queen, Daisy Queen, et al). Dairy Cue, or Dairy Q? No matter, Jim Storm and his family were setting themselves apart serving quality burgers and attracting legions of loyal fans, including perhaps the most famous gourmand in history - Elvis Presley, who is said to have frequented the establishment while stationed at Fort Hood.

Old School Drive-In

New School Patio

The original Storm’s is a drive-in and still has the look of a bona fide burger joint. But they also have a new patio across the parking lot for those wanting to “dine-in.” The patio is contemporary and clean, with a fountain made from Llanite and landscaping that uses native Texas plants. To be honest, the patio didn’t look very “burger joint” at all, but the fact that they chose to keep the original drive-in alongside the new structure, shows their solid values and commitment to their own heritage. Okay, I can feel TBG getting impatient; let’s get to the food.

The menu is simple and features the Storm’s Special – a 1/2 pound, triple-meat cheeseburger and fries. If they say it’s special, then that’s what I want. I placed my order from the patio, using the same intercom and menu system found in the drive-in stalls. In just a few minutes, I was served. My initial observation was that the burger came wrapped in paper rendered clear from the grease. I wondered if I could get an angioplasty in Lampasas.

Click here for 1600 x 1200.

Undeterred, I unwrapped the burger. I had ordered the special without pickles or onion, which is my custom, and this is what was left: three beef patties, one slice of American cheese, shredded lettuce, tomato, and mustard, on a lightly toasted white bun that looked like it had been run over by a truck. This was a good burger, maybe even a very good burger, but I would stop short of saying that it was a great burger. Maybe it just goes against too many of my preferences. For instance, the fact that it is a triple-burger might sound impressive at first, but the individual patties are thinner than the ones found in an Elementary School cafeteria. They are so thin that it would be impossible not to overcook them, which is the real problem here. If anything, one of the valid reasons for having multiple patties, is to increase the cheese to beef ratio, but Storm’s only has one slice of cheese to hold together three patties (obviously, extra cheese is available). I also prefer to have my vegetables on top of the burger, rather than beneath it. It’s a small thing, but it does matter. Let’s run down the TBG categories:

Ooze Factor
Let’s talk about ooze for a second. There is good ooze and there is bad ooze. The best ooze is the cow juice from a nice medium-rare to medium burger. To a degree, grease can be good ooze. Bad ooze is a wet burger from watery vegetables. This was a medium-wet burger, but there was very little cow juice. The ooze was mostly from grease and wet vegetables. If you like grease, this is another advantage to a triple-burger, especially if it’s fried – there are six sides of burger holding grease for you. I’m going to go straight down the middle on this.
Ooze Factor Rating: 5

Herd Killer
No mystery here; this burger is a 1/2 pounder. With more patties to cook-down, I bet it comes out less than a single 1/2 pound burger when it’s served.
Herd Killer Rating: 4

Handling
This burger was very easy to handle. By design or by accident, this burger was squished-down flat, which made for good maneuverability and easy ingress. It had good ergonomics, but was not very impressive looking.
Handling Rating: 4

Bling Bling
My total bill was just over $5, an incredible bargain. Also, to aid in digestion and to keep my blood thin enough to hopefully stave off an aneurysm, I ordered water with my meal and they gave me a huge, Super Big Gulp sized cup, which I thought was unusually generous. However, I noticed that there was a $.50 charge for any substitution, no matter the item. I can admire that concept from the standpoint of this being a burger joint (“You get what you get,” according to Alan Richman), but I have to dock them under this category. It would be silly to charge me $.50 for tater tots instead of fries.
Bling Bling Rating: 8

Gravedigger
Half a pound of meat and a little grease isn’t enough to get me too worried. If you think food is going to kill me, you haven’t seen me drive. This was less than an hour later with the top down and the little tin can getting blown all over the road:

Storm’s Gravedigger Rating: 4 shovels
Jimmy’s Driving Gravedigger Rating: 9 shovels

Overall Storm’s Special Burger Rating: 5

This is a case where an overall rating might make a burger look poor. Nothing could be further from the truth. As I said before, this is a good burger, especially when considering other factors of the dining experience. First and foremost are the fries. The fries are outstanding. They are fresh cut and fried in the skin to a perfect level of crispiness and saltiness. The only thing I found unusual was the fact that I found a packet of ketchup at the bottom of my pile of fries, like the prize at the bottom of a cereal box, when it was too late to use it. I couldn’t tell if that was a Storm’s custom, or just a fluke. I don’t usually put ketchup on my fries, so it really didn’t matter.

Finally, on my way back home a couple of days later, I stopped at the Storm’s in Burnet to check the consistency between the two locations. I ordered the exact same thing, except that I also ordered a vanilla malt. The burger and fries were exactly as I had found them in Lampasas (except no ketchup packet prize). The malt was thick and delicious. In fact, it was so thick that I couldn’t figure out why they bothered having an “extra thick” option, which I didn’t try. I suppose it comes as a solid, rather than a liquid.

There are Storm’s locations in Lampasas, Burnet, Hamilton, Kingsland, and Marble Falls. For more information, check their website at www.stormsrestaurants.com.

Overall Rating for Storm’s: 7 

After lunch, I turned up 183 and continued heading north. The weather was stunning and the roads were clear. I found that with the top down, but the side windows up, I could cruise comfortably at fairly high speeds. I still had On The Road in my CD player, but there was no hope of hearing anything but subliminal whispers from it.

This might sound a bit strange, but I love the Southern Gothic dilapidation found in small Texas towns and the adjoining countryside. I love the abandoned shops and the broken barns. I love the fallen stables and the (not really so) ancient stone walls. I love the faded signs of times past. I stopped in Zephyr, Texas and snapped some photographs of the Miata in front of such a building.

Click here for bigger. 

I also snapped some fashion shots of the car at our final destination – the hunting camp, which is a boxcar located in the middle of the lease property as if set down by the same mischievous UFO that dropped a boat in the middle of a desert in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Now with Super Shock Control!

I arrived before anyone else, so I had a chance to just sit back, crack open a beer and dig into a book. Despite the mild weather and a gentle breeze, the afternoon sun eventually made me tired, so I dug around in the boxcar until I found a hammock. I tied it between a couple of trees and lay in the shade until Steven Sylvester and his stepson Riley drove up. We unpacked their truck and visited for awhile until the sun started to drop and then we geared-up for an evening hunt. Just as we were driving off, Steven’s best friend, Sam Roach, drove into camp. Within a half hour, the four of us were setup near a tank under a tree line where the doves were known to roost for the night. We waited for them to fly in. When they finally came, Sam and Riley each got a bird, but Steven and I were shooting blanks. We each mumbled something about the beer.

It seems migratory birds are completely safe from me as they appear to be small enough to evade my target locking computer. The same cannot be said for the cute, fuzzy bunny rabbit that Riley flushed out of the brush for me, though. The rabbit ran straight at me and fearing death at the end of sharp, pointed teeth, I was forced to defend myself.

We got back to camp and Sam showed me how to clean the rabbit. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Riley and I built a fire and Steven grilled steaks for everyone. He also grilled the two birds they had got that day. He put the meat into jalepeños and wrapped them with bacon. Delicious. David eventually arrived late in the evening. We told him what had happened and then we turned-in so we could get up early for the morning hunt.

The morning hunt didn’t go as well. I think Sam got another bird, but they were scarce. We spent the rest of the day walking David’s new property. He and his wife just closed on a property about half an hour from the lease. Dave plans to just hunt the property, but eventually they will build and probably retire there. It was a very nice plot. Unfortunately, walking around in the woods was starting to take its toll on me and I developed a fairly righteous allergy attack and I had left all of my meds back at the camp. When we drove into town for lunch, I stopped in a grocery store and bought some Benadryl. When I walked up to the checkout to pay, the cashier and the bag boy acted like I was some kind of alien. The cashier had no qualms at all about checking me out, looking hard up and down as if to say, “What is your story.” Sure, I was in my hunting drag, which is really just my Air Force BDU, except that I can’t button the top button on my trousers anymore. And I was wearing a hat, so my hair couldn’t have been too bad. I just couldn’t figure out what she was looking at. The bag boy (who was really on the verge of being a bag man) kept grinning at me like an idiot. When he asked me if I wanted paper or plastic, I said I didn’t need either and that I would just walk out with it. Then he laughed and pointed at me as if I had said the funniest thing he had ever heard.

Later, we went back to camp and shot skeet to practice for the evening hunt. As usual, I did very well shooting skeet, but I still couldn’t bring down a bird. One time, after another wave of birds had flown safely past us, I turned to Dave and expressed some frustration.

“No dude, you clipped that last one. I saw it.”

Just about then soft, downy feathers began falling gently all around us like snowflakes. I had indeed clipped a bird and the wind had blown his feathers back over us. It was surreal and funny. I never did get a dove, but the other guys each got at least one.

The next day, after another lame morning hunt, we got out our frustration by going redneck and shooting inanimate objects at the camp. Dave shot an old pair of his boots. The best though was an old TV that somebody had brought. We set it up on a chair and I went after it with my 9mm. I didn’t think it would do much…but it did. Then we stepped it up by shooting it with Sam’s AR-15. Finally, we went absolutely medieval by shooting 00 magnum loads at it with a 12 ga. shotgun. We obliterated that TV. I suppose one could argue that we were making a social statement about being outdoors vs. staying indoors, but more realistically we were probably just making a statement about us wanting to shoot up stuff.

It was a great trip.

After I got home, I checked the Internet for rabbit stew recipes, read about six of them, took the elements I liked, and then struck-out on my own. I cook by feel, so don’t expect any measurements. Here is what I did:

1 rabbit
vegetable oil
flour
red wine
potatos
carrots
red (purple) onion
bella mushrooms
2 cans beef stock
salt
pepper

Salt, pepper, and brown both sides of the rabbit in a large frying pan. Then put the rabbit in a crock pot with diced potatos, carrots, bella mushrooms, and anything else you want in your stew. I like to keep it simple. In the frying pan, make a roux out of the remaining vegetable oil, flour, salt, and pepper. Add sliced purple onion and red wine. Reduce. Add beef stock and reduce until you have the consistency you want. Pour the reduction into the crock pot and cook everything on low for a couple of hours. I was going to cook it for two, but it ended-up being three because I went into my office to work on this entry, drank the rest of the bottle of red wine that I had used to cook, and lost track of time.

I took the rabbit out of the crock pot and pulled the meat off of the bone. The stew would probably be best served with/on biscuits, but I’m too lazy, so I had mine with toast points. Okay, they weren’t really points, I just tore up a couple of slices of toast and threw them in the bowl. I thought the stew was quite good. In fact, I wouldn’t change anything except that I would start earlier and cook it longer. It wasn’t undercooked by any means, but if left in the crock pot longer (say, eight hours), the meat would be even more tender. The stew was even better a day later. And the day after that.

jimmy